Early investors Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the round; Unacademy has more than a million subscribers on YouTube.

India's largest learning platform Unacademy announced the close of a $11.5 million series B round of funding led by Sequoia India and SAIF Partners. Existing investors and angels including Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures also participated in the round.

Unacademy will utilize the funding to accelerate its product and technology as well as scale to other categories including personality development, new languages and job interviews. The company will also significantly invest in producing its own knowledge based content with its top educators on the platform.

“Our vision is to build the world’s largest online knowledge repository by empowering great educators,” said Gaurav Munjal, CEO and cofounder, Unacademy. “With the backing of Sequoia India and SAIF Partners, we are poised to significantly gain momentum and create the first global education technology product out of India. I’m very excited to kickstart this new phase of growth for Unacademy.”

Unacademy is an online learning platform that empowers educators to create courses on various subjects. The platform currently has more than 50,000 lessons online and over 1 million registered users. It is also one of the largest education channels on YouTube India with 1 million subscribers.

The platform’s educators range from influencers like Dr Kiran Bedi to teachers in smaller towns and cities such as Dhiraj Singh Chouhan in Jagdalpur and Yasmin Gill in Panchkula.

Shailendra Singh, managing director of Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore Private Limited said, “Sequoia India is inspired by Unacademy's vision to create a global platform that enables educators to create content and engage with learners. The missionary team at Unacademy is off to a tremendous start, achieving rapid early adoption and Sequoia is thrilled to be a part of their journey.”

Alok Goel, managing director, SAIF Partners, said, “Unacademy democratises access to personalised learning by connecting educators and students directly on its platform. We believe it has the potential to disrupt the status quo that limits access to quality education at a global level. With very limited investment, the team has built a strong brand and word-of-mouth reputation. We are delighted to support the team in realising their mission.”

Unacademy was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh and Sachin Gupta. Gaurav and Hemesh were previously running Flatchat which was acquired by CommonFloor in 2014. Roman, 26, is a doctor from AIIMS and one of the youngest people to clear the prestigious Indian Civil Services Examination. To follow his passion, he quit his administrative services post as Assistant Collector of Jabalpur to start Unacademy.

Recently, the company added billionaire and serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia to the board.